


Ultraviolet

by Noccalula



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Asexual Character, Body Horror, F/M, Gen, Implied Relationships, Medical Procedures, Medical Torture, Medical Trauma, Original Character(s), Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Vanity Project, Violence, except they're not new I've been writing these assholes for a decadeish, meet the babies, noccalula mashes her original verse with the mcu to mixed results
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 14:50:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14854838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noccalula/pseuds/Noccalula
Summary: The Order's Alpha Team does not go on retainer for just anybody - good thing their leader has a working relationship with Nick Fury. On a shared mission to stop a terrorist from selling weaponized radiation, our team encounters a bigger challenge than they'd bargained for that puts their most powerful member down for the count.(Meet a few of the main players of my original verse as they work with a choice few Avengers in a snippet from the mash-up AU I do when I'm feeling vain. I'm throwing you in, no long introductions here.)





	1. Bravery Is In The Eye Of The Emotionless

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys, I'm alive, a few things: 
> 
> \- This is not new material, I wrote this back in 2014 and it takes place pre-Winter Soldier  
> \- I am still working on trying to get back on the ball with Concupiscent and some Frank one-shots, but I am now a month deep into physical therapy and treatment for the vestibular disorder I was finally diagnosed with back in March  
> \- I am still sick as hell but I am moderately active on my tumblr at noccalula-writes so please drop me a line if you're so inclined
> 
> I appreciate your patience with me, as always.
> 
> I know OC's and original verses aren't everybody's jam but hopefully this is at least moderately intriguing and entertaining. Claudia, Coal (that motherfucker), Wes and basically anyone else you don't recognize belong to me. 
> 
> Thanks,  
> Noccalula

“So who wants to take bets on how many severed Claudia limbs are gonna be lying on the field before this is done?” Coal adjusted his gloves mindlessly, as casual as possible while he waged psychological warfare on the newbies.

Some of them were just too easy to bait, and god knows, he greatly enjoyed reminding the people around them that they were not just NOT human, they were on another level entirely - especially Claudia.

Fury cut his one good eye back at the pale young man, expression as furtively grouchy as it ever was, before turning his attention back to Maria at the helm of the small aircraft, “ETA, Hill?”

“Ten minutes, sir.”

Coal, undeterred, gave a little chuckle as he looked up at the SHIELD agent across the way, a young blood with no more missions under his belt than hairs on his chest by Coal’s own estimation. The man gave the paranormal as blank an expression as he could muster when clearly, it hadn’t been that hard to rattle him. Natasha, however, was as unphased as they came, taking the downtime to check the ammo on every weapon she was carrying.

“Hey, remember that time somebody shot out her lungs all over Stark’s face?”

Natasha’s eyes flickered up at Coal as she gave him her patented unamused look. Despite that she gave literally no tell whatsoever to the contrary, the little known fact was that Coal frightened her; she’d spent a great deal of her younger life being prepared for the unknown, any loose variable, and then suddenly there were Gods and magic and superheroes in the world and then this, this young man with this horrible, terrible ability and a dark emptiness behind those bright blue eyes that told her everything she needed to know about where his moral lines lay. Still, it wasn’t in Natasha’s nature to show fear in any scenario short of the possibility of being crushed to death by the Hulk, and she knew that the moment she gave Coal an inch, he’d run miles and miles with that knowledge and paint her with her own special kind of nightmares in every shade of shadow he could use.

Coal, completely unaware of any fear Natasha might have had and borderline resentful of the lack of a reaction on the Avengers’ parts when he showed his ass, began casually adjusting the strap on a piece of equipment on his arm, “Yep, viscera everywhere. That’s got to be disconcerting – your friend’s innards on the outside, _your_  outside, to be exact. Nightmares for days.”

The new agent gawked at Coal a little more openly, those around him trying to look disinterested despite their alarm as their own gazes crawled anywhere but Coal for some purchase. Natasha moved toward the hatch and double-checked her earpiece before looking back at Coal and the others.

“Extraction point is going to be the parking lot next to the helipad, approximately two miles from the landing spot. Agent Baker, Banner and Stark are already present at the engagement point – you need to be ready for the event that Hulk makes an appearance though we’re going to do everything in our power to prevent that. Should the situation arise, Baker will engage Hulk and lead him away from the city towards the forest on the northern hills. Rumlow will be leading the STRIKE Team and they should be arriving shortly after us. You stick to your projections, provide adequate backup to Agent Coal, and try to stay out of the line of fire unless the shit hits the fan. Understood?”

“Affirmative” came the grunted replies of a dozen men in a dozen different stages of fear or excitement. Coal raised his eyebrows at Natasha glibly and moved through the row to stand by the hatch beside the redhead, taking his place for departure.

“And by ‘stay out of the line of fire’,” Coal offered, looking over his shoulder in a menacing fashion, “She means if you end up in mine, you’re collateral damage.”

Fury nearly rolled his good eye as he bent to check Maria’s screens for coordinates, spotting that they were quickly approaching the drop site. This was important enough to take him out of his office and to the very site of this potential shitstorm with two of The Order’s finest agents on assignment as well. How Claudia and Bruce had ended up accompanying Tony was anyone’s guess, but the somewhat well-kept truth was becoming quickly visible that Tony and Claudia had become involved. Odd – Fury had been sure that it would have been Claudia and Banner if anyone.

But this situation needed the most mindful touch and as far as he was concerned, if he wanted something done right, Nick needed to do it himself. Cap and Clint were off on their own missions, Thor had taken Jane and split for Asgard again, and everyone else had been spread thin before this situation arose to begin with. Now, it was going to take a miracle for everything to go off without a hitch.

Not that Fury believed in miracles.

“You’re up!” Fury shouted, casting a glance back at Natasha that said more than he ever verbalized.  _Be careful. I’m expecting you back in one piece. I mean it. Be careful, Tasha._ If Fury called anyone a friend, it would be her.

Her return nod read the subtext and promised back some of her own –  _I will_. Without hesitation, she turned and punched the button to open the hatch as the dozen or so men stood ready for their jump. For Coal’s part, there was little that gave him the same thrills as the feeling of tearing flesh or the warmth of running blood, but jumping out of a plane did give him at least a pleasurable little jolt of adrenaline. The parachute was unnecessary, and he was tempted to show off if only to add to his mystique in front of the underlings of SHIELD, but on the off chance that there was no shadow that could take him directly to the ground at his own speed, it just wasn’t worth the risk. Boo. Cracking his neck, he watched as the hatch rattled to life and the roar of wind filled his ears. Despite that urge to keep reminding them that he wasn’t a SHIELD agent and played by his own rules, Coal had at this point a much better understanding of the purpose of the rules and even had a little appreciation for some of the routine – despite his wishing it were Claudia beside him rather than this icy Russian bitch whose hairstyles seemed to be getting progressively dumber over time. Glancing over, he gave her a nod and moved his steps in perfect synchronization to hers as they both leapt out into the sky, that pleasant rush of his stomach up into his throat and the throb of his pulse in his ears reminding him of that old braying cadence of Sylvia Plath’s heart as well as his own: “I am, I am, I am.”

 

Crouching near the edge of the rocky overhang, Claudia peered through her binoculars at the encampment below, housed in a long-abandoned mansion that had once been a summer home for Latvian royalty. The foot traffic in and out of the building was somewhat impressive – this particular terrorist, Visnijic, had feathered himself a lovely nest to have come out of virtually nowhere to emerge as a leading threat in bio-terrorism spheres. The research he and his team had done on radiation and mutation had been presented non-threateningly enough – possible medical breakthroughs for cancer treatment and the like being the primary smoke screen. Only the few intelligence agencies that actually read the fine print on things as minor as this Visnijic character seemed to be might have noticed the subtextual open invitation:  _weaponized radiation for sale_. Immediately, movement in the governmental cells in the Middle East, North Korea, India, even Brazil suggested that a bidding war was likely to break out over whatever it was that Visnijic and his fellow scientists had developed and while the outcome wasn’t immediately predictable, it could be easily surmised that it’d make the papers.

Bruce paced nervously a few yards behind as Tony walked around with his cell phone in the air, trying to see if his tech could pick up on any jackable signal that could allow him to patch JARVIS into Visnijic’s system. For his own part, Bruce had been extremely hesitant to engage in anything resembling field work; relocating to New Canaan and working with The Order had panned out remarkably well for him and his own peace of mind. He was well over a year with no incidents, spending his days in a lab or a classroom with other scientists on the cutting edge of scientific knowledge, enjoying the nice house that had been provided for him and otherwise combatting his loneliness with contentment about his surroundings and the friendships he’d developed. Of course, as soon as they knew what kind of radiation they were potentially looking at, Claudia knew there was only one person who would be well-equipped enough to come to the summit, look thoroughly at the new information, and then help them track its signatures to wherever the source was. In so long as he could avoid the actual retrieval itself, he was fine – Claudia would be in no danger given her regenerative abilities and could haul the raw materials out if need be, and he could oversee the removal and dispersing of said materials if all insurgents were cleared out, but actual combat was out of the question, even if Tony had pleaded.

Tony was, of course, the reason why Claudia didn’t get the memo on this issue immediately, what with his distracting her by being balls-deep in her when the email came in. Despite this turn in their friendship, she seemed to be having no trouble acting as though nothing had changed, and while Tony wanted to take a few potshots and antagonize her a little in the field, he followed her lead and kept it to himself for the time being. If anything, he always enjoyed Business-Claudia Mode: she was as quippy as him, a little more bitingly so, and watching her work was a thing of beauty until the true violence came in. That part he still had trouble keeping his eyes on her for, but the flipping and climbing and displays of raw strength and agility? It was like watching Steve but with really, really nice tits and a very poor sense of self-preservation as she had no need for one. Then again, Tony was pretty sure Steve would never resort to jamming his hand straight into someone’s back and tearing out vertebrae until –

“I-I don’t know why we’re waiting up here, wouldn’t it have been smarter to meet the teams on neutral ground?” Bruce’s nervous cadence broke the silence as he wrung his hands, his unruly hair blowing in the light cool breeze.

“Because time is a factor,” Claudia responded evenly, standing and hooking her binoculars back on her belt. Her boots crunched into the rocks as she approached him, eyes and mouth softening in sympathy and concern, “It’s gonna be okay, Bruce. We won’t risk sending you down into that, you’re gonna be protected while we handle it.”

“Protected,” Bruce scoffed, cutting his eyes away from hers – sometimes he couldn’t look at hers for too long – and running one hand through his graying hair, “You’re all gonna need a team to protect you from me if this gets ugly.”

Claudia paused, considering lying to him for a moment but remembering quickly that this is Bruce and he’s in no way stupid enough to believe her. Sighing, she reached out and rested a hand gently on his bicep to steady him, her voice dropping but just as calm as still water as she warmly ran a thumb over the material of his shirt.

“If the shit hits the fan in a real big, green sort of way,” she said with a knowing inflection, “I’ll lead you out of here – _if_  it starts to look like  _he_ ’s not going to play ball.”

His protest was immediate, shaking his head and opening his mouth but unable to cut her off as she continued, “Bruce, you  _can’t_ hurt me. You know that. It’s impossible. I distract the Other Guy, make myself a moving target and head for the woods, where we’ll play hide and seek until he gets bored and you come back.”

“And then what?” Bruce asked dryly, his mouth curving into what would have been a smirk if it weren’t so bitter and what might have been more bitter if not tempered by the bond the two of them had grown, “I try not to die of hypothermia until someone finds us?”

“Nope,” she smirked back with a little flirtation, a trait of hers he still wasn’t completely used to,” I was thinking we’d roast marshmallows and snuggle in a sleeping bag until Stark radar’d us. Or, I could use the homing device that’s connected to the home building and Danny can port us out of here and we can be back in New Canaan in time for two-for-one burrito night at Cantina Laredo.”

Exasperated but defeated, Bruce shut his eyes and sighed, rubbing at his temple. Tony, who had been listening to the exchange while pretending to be busy with tech related things, decided he’d had enough of not being the center of attention and came over to place a hand warmly on Bruce’s shoulder and at Claudia’s ribs. His brown eyes sparked with his usual flavor of trouble as he gave them both a smirk of his own.

“Now now, kids. I was thinking we could all go back to Stark Tower. Y’know, break open a vintage 1886, get out the bearskin rug, get a fire going, make some memories that will last a lifetime and require a full twenty four ounces of lube at minimum?”

Bruce rolled his eyes and gently removed Tony’s hand from his shoulder, turning to watch the trees and pace a little longer as Claudia narrowed her eyes at the billionaire and his oddly specific facial hair.

“You’re as smooth as sandpaper, Stark,” she teased, their mutual gazes becoming more knowing than they would have were they not almost alone, “How you continually get laid is beyond me.”

“Haven’t a clue,” Tony shot back casually, shrugging as he looked down at his device, “Must be the obscene wealth and devastating good looks. Anybody got the wifi password here?”

Unsure if he was kidding, Claudia watched him with a slight frown until it was clear that yes, he certainly was. He held up the device again and made a little noise of triumph.

“Ah, perfect. JARVIS, please copy everything you see from the mainframe for me to pick through at my leisure when this is all over,” he chimed happily, looking over at Bruce to give him some sort of comforting affirmation that this was all going to be alright, “I also need you to locate every single file on who has made contact regarding buying this stuff. In particular, I want the American names.”

 

When the shit (predictably) hit the fan no less than half an hour later, Claudia found herself dodging large pieces of stone wall and roofing while the Hulk made an incredible mess of the place. Nobody had wanted things to escalate this quickly, but when the surveillance inside the building spotted the interlopers - despite Iron Man’s best distraction routine - and fired off two rounds at Claudia and Bruce…well, the Big Guy had something to say about that. She spit out the round only to find her companion growing larger – and greener – by the second, using those valuable moments to move the hell out of dodge before the barrage of gunfire came down on his mutating form. Of course, it was all for naught – he landed on the rooftop, ripped a turret down with his bare hands, and then proceeded to begin making short work of the building, one corner at a time.

The radiation signals in the downstairs units were off the charts in terms of toxicity and she’d ordered Tony away as quickly as possible while she began the descent down the dark hallways, trying to maintain speed while dodging falling debris and killing the odd henchmen along her way. If they were running and screaming, eyes ahead, weaponless and fleeing for their lives, she made it a point to let them pass her by; if they were armed and fighting back, however, it was a different story, one of quickly but savagely broken necks and the odd headshot when a gun was presented easily enough to be grabbed and wielded against its owner.

Coal was sweeping through what was left of the upper floor, cruising along through the shadows and leaving a trail of wet, slicing sounds through anybody that got close as he made a beeline for Visnijic himself. The man was unremarkable enough in a crowd, but Coal had been given his picture and most of the flight to memorize it, though the inability to use lethal force against him dampened his spirits slightly. However, his spirits regained full flush as soon as he noted how many unnamed henchmen and workers seemed to be on the premises - win a little, lose a little. Reconnaissance was never his favorite of the mission objectives but in this case, Claudia was the only one capable of getting close to that much radiation with no lasting effects and while the notion of a second penis or a third arm might have been novel, Coal didn’t have any interest in finding out if his shadow’s regenerative gifts were a match for years and years of Latvian research into weaponized radiation.

Coal had lost sight of Black Widow somewhere around the first explosion, the moment Iron Man had begun firing rockets into the side walls where armed gunmen had been waiting; her ability to slip into shadow rivaled his and it bought her some begrudging respect from the kid who rarely respected anything save Claudia’s suitably gory combat style. Still, he knew they were to play off one another – two agents insuring the delivery of Visnijic right to Fury’s feet – whether he wanted to be partnered with one of the SHEILD personnel or not. Still, that respect reared its head when she moved out of a hallway he’d had no idea she was even in and garroted the bodyguard still attending to the terrified scientist as though it were as simple as taking out the trash. Coal’s blue eyes cut to the deep brown of the trembling man, who seemed not terribly unlike any other lab grunt he’d ever encountered in New Canaan and just as unprepared for the horrors of combat as he had been told he’d be.

“Visnijic, right?” Coal sprang up beside him through the shadow cast under the desk, holding his combat knife closely to the man’s shoulder in just as much of a threat as a promise and sneering, “Answer fast and make it the right one – right answer gets you asylum, wrong answer gets you decapitated.”

“Please,” the man plead, hands up as he clearly established that he was in no way a threat without his formidable guards, “I am Visnijic, I don’t command these forces, I merely work for-“

A knee between the shoulder blades from Natasha put him on his knees with a garbled cry as she moved with inhuman focus and agility to bind his hands behind his back before hauling him up to his feet, grabbing one arm firmly to keep him from swooning back to the floor. Coal grabbed the other, bookending the scientist as they began to head for the back exit.

“Move,” she offered coldly, that authority in her voice eerily calm despite the chaos around her, “And I suggest you stay close, Doctor, unless you want to chance it with the reinforcements outside.”

Visnijic began shaking his head vigorously, hardly even wanting to chance it – until they came to the large hole in the wall that greeted them to a shot of the clear blue sky, the red and gold blur of Iron Man zooming past and firing off missiles at the return fire, and then almost-metallic bellow-screech of the Hulk as he leapt from the ground and into the air, catching a return missile aimed at Tony in one hand and then ripping it asunder.  Suddenly, not wanting to chance it became not wanting to be conscious enough to be aware of it, and he went limp in his captors’ arms as he passed out cold, urine beginning to soak through his pants.

“Goddammit,” Coal sighed, taking the man’s bulk under one arm and nodding forward at the tenuous path ahead of them, “You lay down fire and cut a path, I’ve got him.”

Natasha, who had hardly needed Coal’s instructions as she already knew what needed to be done, didn’t respond but bolted down the treaded footpath, guns out as she ran and took simultaneous stock of any enemies who noticed and thereby needed to be eliminated. The  _pop-pop-pop_  of her gunfire signaled the start of this gauntlet race and Coal, usually accustomed to being able to move in the blink of an eye and without corporeal weight, hefted Visnijic onto his shoulders in a fireman’s carry and began tearing his way through the fray with an aggravated grumble. His eyes stayed trained on the redhead ahead of him, trying to keep his mind on his singular goal: a stray bullet might catch him, but he could heal himself. This scientist, however, had valuable information and getting him to the aircraft alive and in one piece meant a job well done and the best interests of New Canaan served.  _Company man_ , he chided himself, vision focused ahead on Natasha as she took a graze to the arm but hardly seemed to notice.

In the building, the narrow stairway that lead to the underground floors where the research was supposed to be conducted had collapsed behind Claudia, effectively burying her in the laboratories with the personnel charged with holding that ground at all costs. However, the intruding blonde woman took a backseat in their priorities to the fact that the only exit was now blocked by tons of rubble. Most of them tossed down their weapons from their rubbery, gloved hands and rushed past her toward the destroyed stairs, shouting to one another through their HAZMAT helmets. Ahead were a series of glass boxes and metal canisters, all the signage in a language Claudia couldn’t read but the skull and crossbones illustrations more than enough to give her an idea of what she was looking at.

It was a fairly unsophisticated setup compared to New Canaan but impressive given what these people had been working with, how little backing they must have had when this project began. Each glass cube had a number panel awaiting a code entry near what must have been the opening, a door concealed perfectly in the clear panes; she considered grabbing someone by the HAZMAT rubbers and demanding they input a code but in all likelihood, the group frantically pulling at the rocks was too panicked to listen to her or even more, didn’t have the codes themselves to prevent such a situation. Times being hard, Claudia pulled out a pair of Kevlar gloves designed specifically for this kind of situation, yanked them on, and unceremoniously slammed her fist through the deceptively thick glass. The hailstorm of glass shattering and chiming off the hard floors caught the attention of the guards, who began frantically screaming at her as she yanked her fist free, inspected it to find nary a scratch in the fabric, and then moved into the doorway as the now-visible mechanics of it began to leak smoke from the corners.

“Radiation!” one shrieked, coming to stand by the open door but not daring to enter, “RADIATION! You’ll kill us all!”

“Relax,” Claudia responded, coming to inspect the canister as it stood in a vat of clear, viscous gel, “I’m not opening them.”

Pressing her com piece to her ear, she patched into the group frequency, “Guys? I’m trapped downstairs with about six guards, the rubble is blocking the stairs and we’re buried under. I’m looking at the canisters right now.”

Fury’s voice responded promptly, raised to be heard over the gunfire behind him, “Baker, stay with those canisters, we’ll handle the rest.”

“On it, Commander.”

“Claud?” came Tony’s out-of-breath response, voice clear from the protected cavern of his helmet, “You alright?”

Claudia stood with a small grunt, “Buried downstairs, think you can blast through that rubble and get these assholes out of my hair?”

“My pleasure. Ask them kindly to move if they don’t want to die?”

“GUYS, you need to move!” She began making wide circle gestures away from the rocks as they looked at her, “Move away! They’re gonna blow up the rocks!”

The gesture of an explosion moved them quicker than the gentle suggestion, and it was no more than a few seconds later that she could hear the repulsor beams upstairs, beginning to blast through the rubble that was trapping them below.

 

There was little to be done about the canisters except wait until the retrieval team was adequately protected and ready to retrieve them, meaning Claudia spent a good half an hour just waiting, feeling the faint buzzing in her skin of her cells working overtime to undo any damage this proximity might have been doing to her cellular structure. By forty five minutes, she’d developed the first headache she’d had in years and was almost pleased with the sensation, a faint reminder of when she was mortal and suffered from them routinely.

Of course, the novelty of a headache wears off quickly and it didn’t take any time before she wasn’t afraid to let someone know about it, bringing the radio piece back to her ear and chirping in, “Guys? Can you come get this shit already? I kinda want out of this basement.”

The sliver of clear blue sky above was beautiful, almost too perfectly cerulean and without a cloud in sight as she sat on a barrel and sighed. No one but the suited men coming down the hill were around and about save the bodies of the dead, Tony no doubt somewhere right on the edge of the safety zone and demanding they hurry up and let him pass. Still, the signatures coming off the basement were entirely too high to let someone through without the prophylactic suits, and Claudia was unsure if her body was emitting waves as well at this point. Finally, one of the SHIELD scientists she recognized from the conference came to greet her and guide her out of the rubble, up through the stairs and finally back into the sunlight.

“Ugh,” she sighed with relief, pulling her hair from it’s blood-spattered ponytail and rubbing her temples, “I was starting to feel like I’d be underground forever.”

“You’re good to go, Agent Baker. You need to head towards the quarantine camp and they’ll check you for radiation levels. Once you’re cleared, you can rejoin your team.”

“Thanks,” she waved off, casting a glance up at the hilltop she, Bruce and Tony had started on. Sure enough, there was the red and gold beacon of Tony’s suit gleaming in the sun as he watched her cross the expanse of dried grass towards the white tent. Despite herself, she caught a small smile creeping across her lips – he was worried. Of course he was. “Indestructable” meant nothing to him – he was convinced  _he_  was indestructible until something could prove otherwise – and regardless of how many times he’d witnessed her horrific undoings and doings-unto-others, that worry wouldn’t abate.

This sure was getting messy for casual sex with a known player.

With another groan, she tilted her head and ducked into the tent only to be swarmed by attending physicians and nurses, her suit being peeled off of her so quickly she hardly had time to be alarmed before she finally just gave in to her exhaustion and sat heavily on the bench.

“Claud?” the radio in her hand crackled to life with Coal’s voice, “You okay down there, killer?”

“Peachy,” she responded, holding the piece in her hand and seeing that it had begun to melt and warp, “Except I’m pretty sure I’m radioactive now. My head is fucking killing me.”

The static cracked and Coal responded, his voice darkened with what might have been worry, “You not gonna melt on me, are you?”

“I dunno, I-“

Before she could finish responding, the piece was taken from her hand by one of the busybodies in the sterile white suits and while a woman’s voice explained to her that they needed to get all materials that had been on her body away and put with the other biohazard wastes, she couldn’t help but flash briefly to a time in her life where being swarmed by people in sterile suits meant immense, awful pain was coming her way. Her muscles tensed, posture becoming quickly defensive, before one of the figures held up its hands and responded through that muffled plastic.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, it’s alright. We’ve just gotta get you clear of any material that might be harboring the radiation. One of the canisters was clearly leaking.”

Despite the thud of her heart, angry in her chest, Claudia nodded and relaxed enough to be stood up and lead naked towards the plastic flaps marked “QUARANTINE LEVEL TWO.”

 

Up on the hill, Tony watched Coal’s expression change as Claudia responded vaguely, something about a headache. It was unusual to see anything other than the young man’s insouciant, petulant resting face or the gleam of murderous glee in his eyes, his usual visage moving quickly from one setting to the other without much in between, but Tony was clear on what he saw cross Coal’s features: concern. Maybe even fear. A faint chill ran up his spine as the screens in his suit began to oscillate with satellite detection of Claudia inside the tents, her limited medical files he had stolen as soon as they met rotating before him to pull out the pertinent bullet points.

“Sir, Miss Baker’s regeneration exists such that it’s extremely rare for her to register pain for great lengths of time without great chemical alterations,” Jarvis explained, “It is highly likely that the radiation is affecting her cellular regrowth.”

“She has a headache,” Coal muttered to himself, lips tightening into something more grim as he stared off towards the tent.

“Give her time,” Tony responded quickly, “Her cellular growth should even back out once she’s away from the source.”

Coal glanced over, resentful of Tony seeing this moment of lesser confidence and uncertain whom exactly the billionaire was trying to reassure, “Yeah, I know that, asshole. It’s just weird for her.”

Not taking the opportunity to begin volleying insults as he usually did, Tony cut his own attention back to Fury and the rest of the assembled team as they began to file back into the aircraft. No lives lost – just as many boarding as had climbed off. Huh. Maybe SHIELD wasn’t quite as incompetent as he sometimes thought they were. Natasha was standing beside the director, exchanging quiet concerns if Nick’s face was any indication before they traded solemn nods and the redhead turned to stroll onto the craft.

“Stark,” Fury began, walking towards him.

“Yes, honey?” Tony responded flippantly, if only to calm his growing concerns.

Ignoring this the way he usually did, Fury stopped just short of him and surveyed out towards the treeline, “Aerial reconnaissance lost the Hulk a few miles northwest. Care to take a spin and see if you can locate him?”

Though he hadn’t wanted to give himself away so easily, Tony couldn’t stop his automatic glance towards the tents.  _Claudia_.

“She’s fine, Tony,” Fury assured, his tone knowing though his expression remained unchanged, although this confirmed what he already knew to be true about the state of affairs between the two, “We need to get Bruce back before night comes and the cold sets in.”

Licking his teeth, Tony considered that this was the absolute right set of priorities and chastised himself for worrying. She was fine. She was  _always_  fine. Everything was gonna be alright, they would be back on a private jet in no time, and he could find out just how fine she was with his own two hands once they were the hell out of dodge and back out from under the microscope.

“Yeah, I’m on it.”

Powering up the thrusters, Tony peeled out of the clearing and headed northwest, coasting the treeline just in case Bruce had powered back down and was thusly less likely to be spotted. 

 


	2. From The Shadows She Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Claudia begins unraveling from exposure to nuclear radiation, the team struggles to put together a plan of action. 
> 
> Claudia retreats into herself and the memories of what happened to her the last time she was kept in medical isolation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See all previous notes, not new material, though Part 3 will be once I'm able to get writing again (soon I hope, I'm tiptoeing at it). 
> 
> Claudia, Coal, Isaiah and Wes are mine and I'm much poorer for it in Coal's case.

While it had been expected that the entire unit could move out within an hour, the consistently high radiation still coming off of Claudia was complicating those plans. Several showers and detox screenings later, she was still giving off enough radiation to make anyone around her nauseas; likewise, in the course of two hours, she seemed to have moved through various stages of various cancers with rapid fire succession. First, her lymph nodes began to swell, painful bulges under her skin at her jaw, her groin, under her arms giving way to sudden sun-spots appearing on her skin. Then, her teeth began to loosen and fall out, hitting the floor with clumps of long blonde hair, toenails cracking up the middles as she stood shivering under the constant mist of purified water. It was another half an hour before her teeth grew back in, soft and brittle and cracking weakly under the pressure of her jaw, and by the time blood had begun to run down the insides of her legs, her hair had patched itself back on in thin, awkward fields.

 

Given how frightening the process had become, Claudia remained surprisingly calm, catching glances in mirrored surfaces and feeling the bereft skin of her scalp, the bloody pits in her gums with trembling fingers.  The horrified looks on the faces she sometimes saw past the glare of the plastic helmets told her the reality of how she looked was a lot worse than even she was imagining. Eventually her legs began to give under the weight of her now-brittle body, once thickly muscled and strong, and she moved with feeble caution to her knees before beginning to vomit bright red blood onto the tiles, into the drain at the middle of the room.

 

Fury stood at the other side of the one-way glass into the room where the agent was convalescing, his face an unreadable tenor just above the deepest notes of concern he was capable of showing. Claudia wasn’t human – he knew that much on the day to day of their interactions – but she had never looked less human than she did in this moment. She who was once so strong, so impregnable was curling against herself on the tile, the usual stark white of her now almost translucent so that even at this distance he could see the long, blue veins gently curving up towards the thinnest parts of her skin, a slight throb at her temples. But she wasn’t crying out, her eyes focused off into nothing, one thinning hand bracing itself against the floor to keep her upright as she spat up more blood. Dutiful. Accepting. Unafraid.

 

Disassociated, maybe.

 

He knew that somewhere beneath that, there must have been fear. If there was an ounce left of her that was still human, there must have been fear. She was horrible to behold and with a partial familiarity with the effects of both cancer and radiation, Fury knew there was unspeakable pain not only in the physical ravages of them but the emotional gauntlet of facing down your own cracking shell. It deeply unsettled him, watching something akin to a living brick wall be dismantled down to chicken wire.

 

Even still, she showed nothing of her hand, disregarding the presence of the workers around her even as they touched her and she flinched involuntarily, eyes stuck to the floor as if in calm concentration.

 

Maybe there was nothing human left of her after all.

 

“Sir,” Hill’s voice cracked gently as she moved to stand beside him, cool blue eyes peering into the glass and almost fully suppressing the tiniest grimace that crossed her face, “The readings are lessening but it may take more time than they anticipated for her to recover.”

 

“How long?” Fury asked plainly.

 

“Six hours is the top estimate. All samples suggest radiation poisoning and she’s testing positive for several cancers, but the cellular regeneration is still happening even in the samples under the microscope, so she’s fighting.”

 

“Six hours…” he mumbled under his breath, shaking his head slightly, “Seems inconceivable, doesn’t it? She’ll be fine in six hours.”

 

“Possibly less,” Maria added, but he was right – it seemed impossible. She didn’t even recognize the woman in that room, much less feel it was safe to entertain the notion that Claudia would survive this.

 

A moment of silence overtook them both as they watched, grim faced even in rapt horror and fascination, as Claudia sat up on her knees and swayed weakly, closing her eyes for a moment’s peace even in all the movement of the medical unit. One man came over and gently stuck a needle into her arm to pull a blood sample – the reaction was immediate and sharp for something so frail as Claudia turned quickly and raised an arm, reaching to strike him back. Her arm wobbled with a moment’s hesitation and she sunk back into her passive posture, shaking her head, murmuring something like an apology as another suit chided the man publicly.

 

“How many times did we go over this? Approach where she can SEE you, tell her what you’re doing before you do it! Jesus, Fred!”

 

“Hill,” Maria’s radio chirped, “Stark is back, he has Banner with him. He’s coming in for medical treatment.”

 

Though Nick turned to quickly instruct his second-in-command, he had nary opened his mouth before Maria had the radio up to her own, “Do NOT let Stark into the medical tent. Keep him out there and busy.”

 

The hesitance on the other side of the line suggested this might already be a problem.

 

However, Fury turned to Maria and indicated the door with his eye, “Send Coal in.”

 

Questioning the wisdom of letting the viciously violent sociopath come in and see something that was potentially able to set him off down the path of murder, Maria didn’t hide her expression of surprise, “Sir, is that really the best move right now?”

 

They both cast their glances back in at Claudia-that-was, whose eyes seemed to be milking over as she leaned back into the supportive embrace of a suited medic, some sort of pale pinkish purge escaping her open mouth and running down her chin.

 

“Yes. This is his partner, his agency. He needs to be aware of what’s happening.”

 

Picturing the blood of the extended staff dripping neatly off the clean, sterile edges of the room, Maria had to bite her tongue to keep from dissenting once again. An order was an order, and Nick knew these people better than any of the rest of them – though his connections to the agency were still a mystery to everyone. Wishing it were anyone else that had to go retrieve the shadow-monster boy-man who was no doubt antagonizing everyone else in the unit, she grit her teeth and made her way back through the flaps to the outside, squinting in the sun and taking a small measure of comfort in the fact that he might have trouble summoning shadows with the midday overhead beating down on him.

 

“Conroy, send Coal down here. Tell him Fury wants him.”

 

 

Patience was never one of Coal’s stronger suits (alongside mercy, empathy, kindness, or consideration) and the wait had been agonizingly boring. It wasn’t until Tony chirped in the coordinates for his and Bruce’s exact location that he felt maybe they would finally get to go, and even then it had taken the retrieval team over and hour to get there and back. Stark returned quickly on his own once the dazed, glassy-eyed Bruce was safely loaded onto the large ATV, landing artfully in the gravel and bypassing the others to stand beside Coal as he sat on a stump.

 

“Anything?”

 

“Nope,” Coal responded, not even having enough in him to start a snide exchange as usual. Coal didn’t handle being worried very well, even less so when there is nothing around in the meantime to distract him.

 

Tony, who also didn’t handle worry exceptionally well but had much more experience in hiding that fact, nodded wordlessly and turned his suit in the direction of the aircraft, filled with patiently waiting soldiers and a quiet Natasha, cleaning her weapons.

 

“Natasha,” he ignored the others as he moved up the strip and directly to her, “What the hell is taking so long down there?”

 

With a shrug of her slight shoulders, Natasha glanced up and gave him her typically unreadable look, “No clue. All I know is Fury isn’t authorizing takeoff until they know something one way or another.”

 

The exchange was simple and lacked tension but Tony still had trouble accepting the notion that she was telling the truth. As if anticipating that – and being used to being distrusted in general – Natasha shrugged again and shook her head, trying to express more plaintively that she had nothing else to offer him. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know where this concern was coming from and it hadn’t been difficult to put the pieces together, no matter how casual Tony had tried to be all day. He had a worse poker face than he imagined where it came to women, and even Claudia’s cool countenance seemed a little less consistent than usual.

 

“I got nothing, Stark. Sorry.”

 

“Typical,” he snapped in response, his back already to her and his faceplate closing. Natasha was as good as any target to take out his irritation on as he felt the knot in his stomach tighten and the urge for a scotch rising to a nagging need. Taking quick stock of one of Fury’s other henchman making a beeline for him, he opted to pretend he hadn’t seen him and activated thrusters, rose up and jetted off to the tent. As he dropped down and strode towards the entrance flap, armed grunts approached him, shaking their heads.

 

“Sir, Fury doesn’t want you in here. There’s still radiation signatures coming off of her, it isn’t safe-“

 

“I don’t give a shit what Fury wants, get out of my way,” Tony responded coolly, used to getting what he wanted and annoyed when he found that neither guard was backing down.

 

“Mister Stark, please,” the other guard urged, hand out as though his human might could possibly be able to stop the suit or Tony’s will itself, “It’s Commander’s orders. Nobody’s going in until the radiation has been cleared.”

 

“FURY!” Stark growled over them, calling to the slightly open flap, “This is bullshit and you know it!”

 

One guard drew his gun, his face an obvious mix of a fight to hold his courage together given that shooting Iron Man was likely to result in some serious consequences and the desire to step back and let the man in as he seemed to have very strong convictions on the idea. Tony dropped the faceplate down to stare blank-eyed at the guard.

 

“Kid, don’t make me move you.”

 

“Stark.”

 

Tony glanced up to see Maria passing by from another exit and Fury himself standing before him, squinting as he stepped into the sun. The commander’s presence caused both guards to stand down quickly as he strolled up and stood nearly eye to eye with the Iron Man suit, obviously undaunted.

 

“You wanna tell me why you think a rule meant to keep you from dying suddenly doesn’t apply to you?” he asked pointedly, “Or do you want to start a gunfight with SHIELD agents in broad daylight?”

 

Gritting his teeth, Tony felt a slight flush of heat, embarrassment riding up his neck. He knew this was illogical but he had never played to Fury’s orders before, either, so he hoped it didn’t seem too obvious. Even more curious was how obvious it likely seemed what the root of the problem was to everyone else when Tony himself had only just barely begun to understand it.

 

Almost acquiescing, Tony glared around for a moment for some purchase when he spotted Coal being led in through the back. Of course. He had almost believed Fury for the moment that there were purely safety risks involved and he was being unreasonable, but there was everybody’s least favorite New Canaanite heading through the back exit. The young man’s face was a set mask of something he couldn’t quite name, something between worry and aggression, and Tony knew right then that something was wrong.

 

“ _Fury_ …” he started, having lost a little of his wind and lacking any plans as to what to do now. _Beg, maybe_. The thought made bile rise in his stomach, half at the sentiment and half because he knew he would if it came down to it.

 

While sympathy for Tony Stark was hard to come by for most everyone, Nick Fury usually found himself at an even less capacity for it than the average person. However, as soon as he heard the mighty Iron Man murmur his name in uncertainty he couldn’t help but immediately recognize it as asking for help; however unlikely it was that Tony was going to actually ask nicely out-and-out – he was far more likely to start trying to blast his way in like a child with a laser being told he can’t have his favorite toy – this had been enough to make him want to take the opportunity to nip that scenario in the bud. After all, he threw the rest of the team a bone from time to time, perhaps it was time to extend that hand to Stark. Not to mention that once he calmed down he might actually be a valuable assistant in figuring out what the hell to do for Claudia.

 

“Listen,” Fury hissed, leaning in close to the face plate and keeping his glance on his periphery as his voice dropped to a conspiratory low, “It’s taking Baker a lot longer than we had anticipated to shake the radiation and she’s getting pretty sick. Coal needs to notify the command outpost at New Canaan of any updates with their agents, Stark. She’s not mine, she’s on loan.”

 

Grim but resolved, Tony took a moment to process that news before nodding, “So why the hell isn’t she shaking it? Do you know?”

 

Whether it was the truth was anyone’s guess by Tony’s estimation but Fury shook his head, “No clue. That’s why I need you out here and rational. Someone needs to get Banner in here as soon as he’s been medically cleared, he’ll know what to do and he’ll be the only one who can withstand being near her for any length of time.”

 

Tony furrowed his brow angrily and opened his mouth, “I-“

 

“Stark, go get Banner. That’s the best thing you can do right now, get our best bet and stay the hell clear in case Coal goes postal.”

 

The last sentence had a jarring effect on the billionaire’s countenance – it was certainly something he’d failed to think about at the moment. Then, instantaneously, he realized the other half of that statement that Fury wasn’t making – it was bad. It had to be bad, if it bore the chance of sending the agent that, while unstable by nature, had just made quick work of his job and taken his orders as plainly as if there were no possibility that he was a potential safety hazard. Coal had improved, but a chimpanzee with a revolver doesn’t suddenly become safe because the safety has been put on.

 

The tight line of his mouth was enough to let Fury know he’d made his point as the commander turned back to the tent, “Get Banner, make sure he’s medically cleared, then bring him back down and we’ll update you then.”

 

Taking a few steps, Fury then paused and glanced back, “Stark?”

 

Tony turned back to face him.

 

“If you hear gunfire from this tent, bomb it.”

 

 

“What’s happening to her?”

 

Coal’s fingers pressed against the glass for a few long seconds before it even registered to him that he was doing it, only the question of why his fingertips were suddenly cold rising to his mind in the first few moments. The initial shock of seeing what lay on the other side had sent the usually explosive young man into an implosion. He barely even noticed that he had spoken until he heard the doctor’s reply a moment later.

 

Fury turned and nodded at the man in full prophylaxis.

 

“Radiation poisoning has affected her cellular regrowth profoundly. She’s still regenerating, which is the good news, but proximity to that much radiation,” he paused, shaking his head, “Radiation we don’t even fully understand yet, means that she’s unable to heal fully until she’s able to get every molecule of it out of her system. Currently, she’s adopting several different cancers and mutation symptoms. We’ve never seen anything like this.”

 

Was it even Claudia? Too thin to be Claudia – at least until a second, longer glance – the figure on the cot lay curling onto her side. The hackneyed blonde strands of hair were falling again, piling on the floor and at the head of the cloth beneath her. Her lips were pale and cracking, deep red lines of soft trickles of blood near the flaking, dead skin as she occasionally opened and closed her mouth slightly, as if trying to speak or indicate something. A suited attendee responded with an ice chip being gently rubbed against her peeling lips until she fed it carefully into her mouth, one hand softly poised on the white shoulder that had moved beyond her typically unusual pale and into the pallor of the dead, capillaries and veins clearly visible beneath the thin layer. Occasionally, Claudia raised her head weakly as if trying to glance toward the ceiling or the viewing window, blinking unseeing eyes that were now a cloudy, milky white.

 

 It didn’t look like Claudia – it barely looked human.

 

Fury was doing his best not to stare at Coal, but watching him for a reaction was the safest bet given the scenario – plenty of men and women outside of this tent were counting on the Commander to have made the right call. While Coal’s expressions were usually few and always somewhat chilling, the slack of his jaw and the darting of his cold blue eyes were plainly indicative of a reaction that was bordering on fear, and that in and of itself was frightening. When the monsters were frightened, there was truly something to be afraid of. Nonetheless, that thing to be afraid of was still Coal, and Fury kept his eye close on him as his hand idled somewhere above the butt of his gun in case a snap judgment needed to be made. Even so, the Commander wasn’t so sure there was any version of that outcome that involved his own survival.

 

“You have to make a decision about what to do from here,” he spoke eventually, voice authoritative as always in hopes of keeping Coal aware of the order of things, “She’s your partner, you’re the ambassadors from New Canaan. If you want her moved immediately, we can air-lift her to a trauma center and take it over. If you want to wait it out, it’s estimated that complete radiation eradication will take another six or so hours, and even then we’re unsure of what her status will be.”

 

Fury’s voice was distant to Coal, who kept his eyes on what used to be his partner at all times, his mind’s eye trying to reconcile what lay before him with what he knew to be the truth. Claudia didn’t die. She didn’t age, didn’t stay injured, didn’t get sick – not even from radiation poisoning. And yet, there she was, helpless and feeble and absolute anathema to what he knew her to be. The man beside him had given the order to hold off on retrieving her from the basement until everyone else was clear, and while Coal’s knee-jerk reaction was to settle all his blame squarely on someone’s shoulders and then remove their head from them, he knew that was a call that Claudia would have made herself. Still, the bile rose in his throat and he felt his hands clench, the shadow’s reaction a visceral stab to the gut that reminded him that murder was, as usual, always an option.  The young man forced his hands to unclench, urging himself to think clearly and sending the shadow’s reaction from chomping at the bit to seething angrily.

 

His call? His natural call was to turn to Fury and tell him he’d see him in Hell before unleashing himself on the largely unarmed personnel inside the tent. For that moment, he could imagine the screaming, the running, the sound of blood sopping to the floor… but only for that moment. A cold, sterile feeling settled in his stomach as he realized that Isaiah would have a much better idea of what to do in this scenario as he had no idea until this moment just how much trouble he had making a decision when Claudia wasn’t there to discuss the finer points with him.

 

“Get Bruce,” Coal nearly muttered, his voice dangerously low as he watched an attendee sink a needle  into Claudia’s arm to hook up an IV port to replace the one that had fallen out, “I’ll make contact with the Director, I can’t make a call without talking to them first. Find out what Bruce thinks.”

 

Though his brain moved him towards the door that would lead him into the room where Claudia was being held, his feet took him to the opposite flaps that would lead him outside. Not questioning the autopilot setting he’d suddenly acquired, Coal glanced back at Fury.

 

“Did I stutter? Get Banner.”

 

A single nod of response was all Fury got out before the young man was gone, letting the air back into the room although he still waited for the sounds of Coal coming undone as reality set in. A moment passed, then another, and there was nothing but the steady, low hum of chatter and machinery as the staff worked towards gathering and analyzing samples as well as monitoring Claudia. Exhaling in moderate relief, Fury looked back towards the somewhat fallen agent, again uncertain of what to make of how calm, almost serene she seemed.

 

“Hill,” he barked into the receiver of his radio, beginning the trek outside, “Tell Stark I said to get Banner down here now, we need him.”

 

 

Coal took a few striding steps away from the tent and towards the few trees growing near it, resisting the urge to begin kicking the trunk frantically. The last thing he needed atop all of this was some newly broken toes and another thing to worry about. Taking his phone from his pocket, he took a deep breath to collect his thoughts – Isaiah was their usual Director, though he rarely had to be contacted for any purpose beyond an emergency. That said, if this wasn’t an emergency, he didn’t know what was – he also had no idea how exactly he was going to word or explain what was going on, considering he barely knew himself. _Claudia’s gone nuclear_? Looking down as his thumb hovered above the call button, Coal realized his hands were shaking.

 

_Fuck_.

 

Pressing down, he took another deep breath and tried to remember the last time he felt like this – jittery, hands shaking, that cold feeling in the pit of his stomach moving up as though it intended to strangle him from the inside. Afraid. Anxious. It had been so long he couldn’t even remember the names to call this feeling, and he felt complete revulsion at the notion that he still experienced either of them.

 

“This is Isaiah,” came the response, the tone as though he knew a call would be coming.

 

“It’s Coal,” Coal offered, his tongue feeling thick inside of his mouth as he struggled with a moment of silence to chastise himself for acting this way, “Sir, we’ve got a situation out here. Claudia’s in bad shape.”

 

The silence on the other side of the line reminded Coal of just how ridiculous that statement was in and of itself – Claudia was the only one that could always be counted on to make it back from a mission alive. For a moment, Coal pondered that he might have to convince Isaiah that he wasn’t fucking around and the idea made him very, very angry.

 

There was no scoff of doubt, no questioning of this reality. The line went grimly silent for a moment before Isaiah spoke again, his low voice even despite the trepidation in his words.

 

“How bad is bad?”

 

“Exposure to radiation, she’s not healing,” Coal began, hand on his hip as he squinted in the sun, “I mean it’s Claudia, she’s not dead but she’s not healing-“

 

“Where is Banner?” Isaiah interjected, tapping his pen on top of his desk as his mind went a thousand miles a minute trying to figure out how best to get her out of there.

 

“He’s on his way down, he hasn’t looked at her yet but…” Coal trailed off but oddly found himself standing straighter, posture more rigid, more respectful than he ever typically was, “Sir, I don’t know what the hell to do.”

 

The line was quiet for another long moment before Isaiah spoke again.

 

“You’ve got Banner going to assess the situation, that’s all you can do right now. I’m at my phone, I want you or him to call me immediately when he sees what’s going on.” There was shuffling as if he were looking for paper, moving something urgently. “I’m going to contact the counsel and get you extracted.”

 

“I’m not leaving her.” It wasn’t even a protestation – more of a statement. Heaven, hell and the armies besides weren’t about to take Coal off this field until she was going with him.

“I’m not asking you to,” Isaiah quickly countered, “Call me when Banner is done. Immediately.”

 

Coal realized his lower lip was between his teeth only when he tasted the blood he had drawn by chewing at it, “Yessir.”

 

 


End file.
